


Scorch

by yeaka



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28368969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeaka/pseuds/yeaka
Summary: Every year, Prompto streams a fireplace.
Relationships: Prompto Argentum/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 24
Kudos: 75





	Scorch

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Final Fantasy XV or any of its contents, and I’m not making any money off this.

It starts in high-school, the first time his parents leave, not just for days or weeks but _months_ , right through the holidays. His mother kisses his forehead, his father clasps his shoulder, and they tell him they love him but walk out the door, leaving food in the fridge and a box of old decorations. Prompto puts them up by himself, even though no one else will see them, just because he has nothing else to do. He doesn’t have any friends close enough to invite over. He doesn’t have any other family. He doesn’t even have a fireplace, so the old stockings lie limp on the floor of the cold apartment. 

At first, Prompto’s bummed out. Of course he is. It snows, and he gets to throw snowballs and make snowmen with all his peers during lunch breaks, but then they talk about sitting around a tree and lounging by the fire, and he trudges home by himself. He kicks off his boots, turns up the thermostat as far as it’ll go, and buys himself a cheap eggnog facsimile with some of the money his parents his left. Then he surfs the internet for free-to-play games with holiday themes in the vain hope of getting some of that sweet holiday cheer. It’s a bittersweet endeavor. When he loses his third reindeer in a Santa vs Santa brawler, he gives up and just finds something to leave on in the background. 

It’s weird to find dozens of all-day streams of just _fireplaces_. It seems totally boring at first glance, but calls him like the first candy canes of the season. He puts on the biggest, most beautiful fireplace he can find and stares at the crackling flames for way too long. The crinkling sounds are soothing, invigorating, and touch something primal in him. He leaves it on right through making and eating dinner, even through the cliché movie he watches after, and puts it by his bed at night. It becomes another fixture in the apartment, like the kitchen sink or the washing machine, except he doesn’t have to tend it. He loads the same video on his phone and carries it around for days.

It’s just a fireplace. The lights are off in the room, so the only illumination is the red-orange glow of the low-level flames, just enough to heat the thick logs and smolder the ashes. The background is brick, old but classic, with burgundy wallpaper just barely visible at the edges. There aren’t any stockings or cheesy trinkets on the hearth. Every once in a while, an arm reaches into the frame to stoke the fire, but so little is visible and it’s gone so fast that it doesn’t break the illusion that it’s _Prompto’s_ fire. He watches that same scene for days.

Then the holidays are over like they never happened, and he wakes up to find the stream’s ended, nothing left on the channel. He could play it again, but it wouldn’t be the same. Wouldn’t be _live_. Then his parents come home and hug him and tell him they’re proud of him for how well he seems to have held up on his own. They say he’s becoming so _independent_ , and he doesn’t correct them, because that sounds so much better than _lonely._

He forgets all about it until next year, when his parents are home, but the notification pops up in his email and he still opens the video. He’s instantly glad he subscribed. His parents still won’t install a real fireplace, but that’s okay, because somebody else’s sits on his laptop, perched on his desk, there for days whenever he comes in and out of his room. It becomes a small thrill when those times coincide with the reaching arm. It’s like their two worlds are colliding, just a little bit. Then the person with the fireplace moves off screen again, and Prompto’s parents call him for dinner. He asks if he can put the stream on the television in the living room, but his parents want to watch the fireworks show at the Citadel, so they do that instead. 

The fire’s almost dead when he wakes up on boxing day, and he rolls over just in time to see the last flame go out. A trim chest covered in a purple coeurl-shirt blocks the camera, and the stream shuts off. Prompto double checks that he’s subscribed and ready for next year. 

It starts again next year, and the year after that, when he graduates, and his parents are gone so often that the apartment may as well just be his. He has one or two friends over before they inevitably disappear for the holidays, and then it’s just him and the fireplace, which is okay, because it’s become his own tradition. It makes him feel toasty and warm and like he’s in his own holiday movie—a silly fantasy where he lives in a nice, fancy house with original features pristinely kept up. And he gets so festive that he smells burning pinewood or cedar or something just as earthy and natural all winter long. Maybe he’d stretch out by the fire and fall asleep there, and his loving partner would come and kiss him awake, and they’d unwrap presents in matching pajamas.

He starts off trying to put a girl in that scenario—maybe a bubbly blonde that would fit right by his side, but then he gets older and realizes _maybe a suave man_ , someone cool and collected with a big fireplace and a bigger log. Then he snorts and sits down with a mug of hot cocoa and biscuits to game on his phone by his laptop. He plays an old one just for nostalgia’s sake and kicks Santa’s ass with only one reindeer casualty. He’s enjoying the victory screen when the stream changes.

The arm comes in to frame, except this time, it’s not just an arm—the owner of the fireplace kneels down, whole body in view—every long, lean centimeter of an incredibly attractive man.

Prompto nearly chokes on the dregs of his cocoa. The man is probably in his early twenties, maybe a few years older than Prompto, but taller, maybe stronger—his button-up shirt is open just enough to see the chiseled lines of his chest. His ash-brown hair is brushed down across his forehead, stopping just short of silver glasses that accentuate the angles of his handsome face. He’s looking at the fire, expressionless, stokes it, then rises up and walks away, right out of Prompto’s life again. The fire roars happy and healthy in his wake, just like it did the first time Prompto found it. 

Except now Prompto’s found something hotter, and he stares at the stream for a good hour before he finally breaks and makes dinner. With the laptop on the kitchen counter. Still running. And he looks over every five minutes just in case.

He sees the man twice again before it’s all over, and Prompto has to wait a whole other year to see the most gorgeous person he could ever dream of. 

He does wait. Crushes come and go in the meantime, but when the holiday rears its hollow head, Prompto swallows down his loneliness in the hopes of another sighting. His parents are gone, as usual, so he can put the stream on the main television and pretend it’s his real fireplace.

And eventually, his pretend boyfriend will come to take care of it.

And he does.

He’s even hotter this time. His hair is styled up in a spike that shows off more of his face, and he’s wearing a thin necklace with a tiny black pendant that Prompto can’t make out. He keeps hoping the man will just come right to the camera, sing a carol or read a story or something, but no, it’s always fleeting sideshots. Those are enough. The man seems to be in good shape. He’s opened comments on the stream, which flood in on the laptop but don’t show on the television. Prompto waffles for three days before posting a whole embarrassing paragraph, gushing over everything, saying how much he appreciates the show, how much it’s become a part of his winter routine, how much he looks forward to it. The channel owner likes his comment. 

But also every other appreciative comment and even a few blunt and borderline rude ones that demand more decorations. He never answers any of them. He never says anything. He probably has a whole busy life going on and doesn’t even think about the stream once he starts it. Maybe it makes him a little money on the side.

Maybe he’s lonely, like Prompto, and wants to know he’s making a connection, however tenuous, with hundreds of strangers across the world. Except a man like that must have dozens of admirers, plenty of friends, maybe a couple lovers. Maybe that’s how they do it in Altissia or wherever he’s from. He doesn’t talk, so there’s not even an accent for a clue. But it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t feel like he’s from anywhere _real_ —he just exists in Prompto’s fantasies. 

Someone comments that his ass is too flat, and another that he probably has a tight chimney. They both get deleted. The man returns to only letting his arm in the frame when he stokes the fire. Prompto’s heartbroken. 

But he still has the fireplace, which is something. And maybe the gorgeous proprietor will forget he’s a thirst-trap by next year and show up again then. 

Which he does. Except Prompto’s parents are home for the first time all year, so Prompto has to just leave it running in his pocket. And when it’s over and they’re gone again, he re-watches the whole stream all through January, time-stamping and replaying the parts where the dreamboat pops in to hang a single piece of holly in the center of the hearth.

Before the stream ends, he murmurs, _“Happy Holidays,”_ to the camera. His voice is lilting and delicious. Creamy, deep, soft. A slight posh accent—he must be high-born. He looks expensive. His necklace is a skull pendant, so he’s also a badass. And he heats Prompto’s whole bedroom like a raging star.

It’s almost stupid to move out, because Prompto’s parents’ apartment is basically his, but he does anyway, because he’s old enough and that was the whole point of getting a lame retail job and working so hard at photography gigs on the side. He can’t afford anywhere with a fireplace, but he gets a big TV that can become a pretend one. He doesn’t even care that it doesn’t generate real heat anymore. It’s all in his head. Like most of his life. He signs the lease in November and works his ass off to afford dumb decorations for December. The first week in, the dollar store’s crowded, and he can’t decide if he wants real candles or not. He really wants to _smell_ fire, but he also doesn’t want to burn his new place down, and he’s working so many hours that he tends to fall asleep unexpectedly. 

He’s in the isle for maybe five minutes, holding a bag of wax candles in one hand and a plastic battery one in the other, when someone says, “Excuse me,” and Prompto automatically steps aside to let another man reach for a vanilla-lavender mix in the shape of an elm. 

Then he catches a glimpse of the man in his peripherals and straight up drops both the things he’s holding. They clatter to the ground in a big, shameful heap that only makes him blush twice as hard. His whole face must be red.

Frowning, the man bends to help him, but Prompto leaps down, scrambling at the tile floor to shuffle both candle sets back onto the shelf. When they straighten out, the man asks, “Are you alright?”

And Prompto’s the ultimate dumbass, so he splutters, “Holy shit, I’m your _biggest_ fan.”

The man blinks. Prompto’s such an idiot. He wants to turn around and bolt. But he also wants to hug this stranger for dear life. The stream hasn’t started yet, but if it had, it’d be running in his pocket, because he takes it with him when he goes out. It’s the whole reason he keeps paying for roaming internet on his phone. But he’s blowing it all and tries to fix it, bursting instead, “I mean, uh...” He fumbles, struggles, and blurts, “I love your wood.”

The man’s perfectly trimmed eyebrows rise beyond the rim of his glasses. Somehow, he looks even better in person. His cologne is subtle but intoxicating. He’s wearing a grey suit over a purple shirt that Prompto’s seen before, but not like this, not _right in front of him_ , fitted so well and sinfully tight and his eyes are _everything_ — 

“Shit, sorry, that sounds bad, I meant, I mean—I, uh, I watch your fireplace stream every year and it’s _so great_ , like, my place is totally cold, and your videos always get me hot—no, shit, uh—like, fire hot, like, I mean, your heart—I mean hearth!—not you, I mean, you too, you’re also hot, _really hot_ , I’m not saying you’re not, I just—” Prompto can’t stop himself. He’s on a train that’s spinning off the tracks and he’s died of embarrassment right over the gas pedal. At least the man has started smiling, though it’s clearly laced with pity and amusement. Prompto finally squeaks, “Sorry.”

“Thank you,” the man says, so smooth and easy and _cool_ , just like Prompto knew he would be in real life. “I’m glad I could bring you some holiday cheer.”

“You do. Really. I don’t have a fireplace or... anything... so... it’s just...” He sounds so weird. He knows he sounds weird. But he still says, “You make my year.”

“I’m flattered.”

He couldn’t possibly be. But he’s smiling softly like he is, looking Prompto right in the eyes, instead of running. He has incredibly long legs, so he could definitely outrun Prompto if he tried. If he was sane, he’d try.

Maybe he’s a freak like Prompto. Because he’s still standing there. Just waiting. Looking. Practically inviting Prompto to fanboy even more. And Prompto shouldn’t but can’t help himself. He’s not a lonely teenager anymore. He’s a horny grown-ass man with his biggest nonsensical crush standing right in front of him.

So he ruins what little dignity he has left by asking, “Could I, uh... maybe... buy you coffee sometime?” 

The man tilts his head. Prompto’s tongue is so thick that it’s a wonder he manages to add, “To thank you for all the festive feels. I know you’re super out of my league, but...”

The man glances down at the fabric shopping bag in his hand. Prompto hadn’t even noticed it. But of course the man is running his own errands, dealing with his own life, because he doesn’t just exist to stoke Prompto’s flames. But Prompto’s interested in all that other stuff too. He wants to learn about it over dinner and wine and the afterglow but figures he should start light. Which he’s already failed.

“I was actually going to pick up some lumber,” the man mutters, because of course he would be—his stream should be starting soon. Prompto was going to hurry home in the hopes of catching it. Then the man looks up and muses, “But I suppose I could make time for a coffee.”

It feels like every cell in Prompto’s body is vibrating at the speed of light and he’s going to be raptured at any second. “There’s a Tonbrewery around the corner...” He’s normally not fancy enough to go there. But he will absolutely treat Holiday Log Man right.

“Excellent.”

And the man sticks out his free hand, offering, “Ignis Scientia, by the way. It’s a pleasure to meet you”

“Prompto Argentum.” His palm’s crazy sweaty. There’s no way Ignis doesn’t notice that. 

But Ignis gives him a firm shake and tells him, “You’re quite cute yourself, Prompto. I wouldn’t worry about any leagues. Would you mind if I purchased this candle first?” He retrieves the tree-shaped one he was going for, and Prompto somehow coordinates a nod.

“Sure.”

“What were you buying?”

The fake candle. Because he can’t deal with the real thing right now. He’s already flown too close to the sun. Ifirit’s fury will surely roast him any second. Ignis plucks the candle out of his hand the second after he’s taken it, then suggests, “I’ll get it for you—a gift for a loyal subscriber.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t—”

“Please, don’t worry about it. I’m a rather expensive date, even for just coffee, so you must let me pick up this tab.”

Prompto can’t argue with Ignis. His head’s still buzzing. Ignis seems to decide that’s it—they’re ready for coffee.

_For a date._

He strolls past Prompto towards the register, both candles in hand.

Prompto floats after, up on cloud nine. He feels like he just beat the living shit out of Santa, kept all the reindeer, and got _all_ the presents. It’s pelting snow outside, but for Prompto, it’s the hottest day of the year.


End file.
